Congratulations, you made it through another year. Hopefully you were able to achieve most of if not all of your goals for 2011. Good news, if you fell short on some of them, you have another 365 days to achieve them. A little smarter next year then you were this year by virtue of being a year more mature. Even if I don’t achieve all of my yearly goals, I always feel like I learned enough from the past years experiences to go into the upcoming year smarter and better prepared.
For me, 2011 brought about a significant change in my approach to strength and conditioning training. I had been toying with the idea of of shifting my training to sport style kettlebell lifting and I finally decided it was time to hire a coach and actually do it and not just talk about it. Let me tell you, it’s the toughest training with weights that I have ever engaged in but also the most rewarding.
With this new approach to training, my strength and conditioning has taken a major leap forward in a very short period of time. I wish I had made the switch sooner but better late then never. I would encourage everybody to incorporate some sport type training into their workouts. You will be amazed at just how much your fitness will improve. Perhaps the biggest improvement though will be your mental toughness. If I had to point to one trait that is the key to successfully lifting heavy weight for an extended period of time, say ten minutes, I would say that mental toughness is it.
I would add that you need to be careful when referring to kettlebell styles. I was in the camp that believed that there was actually two different styles, hard-style and sport. I don’t believe that anymore. I posted an article that explains more. Read more here...
I have many goals to work toward in 2012 and I hope you do as well. Goal setting is critically important to being able to progress in your training as well as in life. I will do my part to help you by offering you training advice and encouragement. Hopefully in some small way you can benefit from my experiences both positive and negative. To that end, I will be revamping slightly the membership site, The Iron Kettlebell Club by adding some more sport type training instruction and possibly a coaching section to the site.
I want to thank each and every one of you for your continued support of Iron Kettlebell Fitness and I wish you all the best in 2012. God bless and we’ll talk soon.
Yours in Health,
Dennis
